Q Toon: P.S., You're Fired

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk, media from his side of the aisle leapt to the conclusion that his killer must be some leftist transgender anti-gun immigrant tree hugger from Berkeley. And, fess up, you thought so, too.

He turned out to be an ammosexual son of a local sheriff, raised Mormon, who etched right-wing mottos on the bullets he shot. 

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe he's got a transgender roommate and got converted to socialism during his one semester at college before dropping out to attend trade school instead. But the transgender roommate has been helpful to police — although I wouldn't be surprised these days if the transgender roommate turns out to be as real as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

The way the media bubbles of the left and the right have become so self-contained, Schrödinger's Assassin can be whoever you preconceive him to be. He's a disciple of Nick Fuentes. He's a card-carrying liberal thanks to a single semester at Utah State. He's Death Wish and Robocop. He's Crying Game and Brokeback Mountain.

He's a floor wax and a dessert topping!

What he has become, without a doubt, is a convenient excuse for the present authoritarian regime to crack down on and criminalize free speech that does not conform to officially permissible thought.

From Absolutely Corrupt Premier Donald Berzelius Trump on down, this gilded White House and its congressional majority lackeys are now demanding the firing of anyone who dares question Charlie Kirk's sainthood, fails to demonstrate adequate grief, or appears in public without sackcloth and ashes. "They're already under major investigation," Trump told reporters, adding that he means "A lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the left."

Vice President Shady Vance took time off from his vice presidential duties to guest host Kirk's podcast, telling his audience, "When you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer."

Reichkulturkammer Stephen Miller threatened disloyal subjects, "The power of law enforcement under President Trump's leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suspended an Army colonel for a social media post critical of Kirk. Attorney General Pam Bondi went on Fox Noise to admonish private business, "And employers, you have to have an obligation to get rid of people... They shouldn't be working with you."

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who is running for governor, called on social media for the firings of an assistant dean at Middle Tennessee State University and professors at Austin Peay State University and Cumberland University. All three lost their jobs for comments deemed inappropriate for expressing a lack of sympathy, or even for expressing pleasure, in the shooting of Kirk. One said Kirk “spoke his fate into existence.” (PBS News)

MSNBC fired Matthew Dowd — a George W. Bush administration strategist — for opining that "Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions." Washington Post global opinions editor Karen Attiah got fired for quoting on her own social media account Kirk's statements demeaning Black women's "brain processing power." Not for celebrating Kirk's death, but for quoting him. Accurately.

PHNX Sports, an online sports news site focused on Arizona, announced the firing of reporter Gerald Bourguet after he said on social media on Wednesday, in a since-deleted post, that "Refusing to mourn a life devoted to that cause is not the same thing as celebrating gun violence." (CBS News)

And just yesterday, ABC pulled the plug on Jimmy Kimmel over Monday night's monologue.

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them,” Kimmel said. He also poked fun at President Trump’s response to a question from the press about how he was mourning Kirk’s death after Trump pivoted to a discussion of the construction of a new White House ballroom.

First Colbert and now Kimmel? Oh, well. I've been staying up too late at night, anyway.

Outside of government, the press, jocks, educators, and comedians, the people fired for reacting to Kirk's death the way the Fornicate Your Feelings mob has responded to the deaths of George Floyd and the assault on Nancy Pelosi's husband have included fire fighters, restaurant managers, airline pilots, Nasdaq employees, and who knows how many more by the time the Ministry of Truth Social declares another thoughtcrime wave?

Q Toon: Definition on Condition

The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee — the ones without imminent retirement plans — worked hard to besmirch the integrity of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court nomination hearings last week. Josh Hawley blasted her for not sending a teenager to prison for ten years of hardening as some other inmate's bitch. Ted Cruz fulminated about racist babies. Lindsey Graham threw a hissy fit about the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.

And Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) attempted to trap Judge Jackson into answering a Gotcha! question about transgender persons.

She then tweeted a quotation from the Constitution, except that it happened to be a quotation from the Declaration of Independence.

Republicans have decided that 2022 is the year to go all in on their war against transgender people, so Blackburn must have thought herself mighty damned brilliant to stump Judge Jackson with the question "Can you provide a definition for the word 'woman'?"

“Can I provide a definition?” Jackson replied, clearly bemused. “No. I can't.”

“You can’t?” Blackburn replied.

“Not in this context,” Jackson said. “I’m not a biologist.”

“So you think the meaning of the word woman is so unclear and controversial that you can’t give me a definition?” Blackburn said, obviously framing Jackson’s response unfairly.

“Senator, in my work as a judge, what I do is I address disputes,” Jackson said. “If there’s a dispute about a definition, people make arguments and I look at the law and I decide. So I’m not —”

“Well, the fact that you can’t give me a straight answer” — here Blackburn offered a wry chuckle — “about something as fundamental as what a woman is underscores the dangers of the kind of progressive education that we are hearing about,” the senator said.

I've read to scientific discussions about X and Y chromosomes, intersex persons, and so on; I've read transgender persons' attempts to explain feeling that they were born in the wrong body or couldn't accept the social constructs around being one gender or the other. I still don't completely understand what that must feel like, but I have tried to understand it.

I can guarantee you that Marsha Blackburn and her ilk have never tasked a single brain cell to consider why a person is transgender.

No, they're busy raising the alarm that allowing a transgender collegiate swimmer to compete against other women is the greatest danger to life on Earth since, well, Hunter Biden's laptop. That's a transgender swimmer who, by the way, is good, but has not been leaving every other female swimmer eating her dust, or her spray, or whatever it is that unbeatable swimmers leave the rest of the field eating. 

They're busy censoring and cancelling any transgender author who writes a book to explain to other transgender people, especially children, that they aren't alone. Or to urge cisgender people, even children, to be accepting and understanding of others. Republicans demand isolation and shame upon such crimethink.

And they're still busy making sure that transgender people aren't allowed to go to the bathroom anywhere. Or use public drinking fountains. Or sit near the front of the bus. Or swim at cis-only beaches.

Of... course...